Dr. Goetz, a Century editor at large, holds the Niebuhr
distinguished chair of theology and ethics at Elmhurst
College in Elmhurst, Illinois. This article appeared
in the Christian CenturyFebruary 24, 1982, p. 196. Copyright by the Christian Century Foundation
and used by permission. Current
articles and subscription information can be found at www.christiancentury.org.This material was prepared for Religion
Online by Ted & Winnie Brock.

John the
baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the
forgiveness of sins [Mark 1:4].

John
the Baptist knew that the decisive moment was at hand, and he interpreted
that moment in terms of his sense of outrage over sin. However, his
proclamation of “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin” strikes
most of us, if we are honest, as a call from another world -- a voice from a
wilderness that has long since been brought under human control. Even if we
are relatively pious, it would be hard to keep a straight face if -- on our
way home from church, for example -- we were beset by an itinerant preacher
like John who wanted us to “repent.” Such a declaration is born of a moralism
too naïve for our modern Sensitivities and insights.

We tend, quite properly, to relativize
human frailties in terms of a social and psychological situationalism. People
who have suffered great privation might be excused for a certain grasping
acquisitiveness born of a fear of want. People who have been psychologically
abused because of their race or sex may find it impossible ever to feel reconciled
to members of the groups that have caused them torment. Those who have been
exposed to violence often respond with violence. Our liberal, social-scientific
perspective has made it axiomatic: trace down the empirical roots of human
attitudes and actions, and you will understand them, and “to understand all is
to forgive all.”

For John, understanding and forgiveness
can be reached only by way of “repentance.” Judah was an occupied land,
victimized by tyrants foreign and domestic. John, however, did not suggest that
the nation’s suffering mitigated its guilt. We cannot but shudder at the
ice-cold rectitude of John’s announcement. He knew that the wretchedness of
Judah had reached such desperate proportions that a holy God must act, that the
very depth of the lowliness of his people called into question God’s honor.
John’s genius was flamed by an apocalyptic urgency. God must send the Messiah
soon. Nevertheless, for John, the suffering of the nation did not excuse its
sin. It stood accused; it needed the baptism of repentance if it were to
prepare for a day of reckoning in which one’s only hope was to have already
radically turned around.

We
for our part, from a distance of almost 20 centuries, stand amazed. What was
the nation’s terrible sin? We are overwhelmed with the compassion of those
who understand weakness. For us, the wonder is that the faith survived at
all. John’s courage against Herod, his martyrdom -- these we admire. However,
his usual audiences were the victims of Herod. Was all this doomsday prophecy
primarily the afflicting of the afflicted?

Jesus was the fulfillment of John’s
messianic hope, and yet Jesus and John were not at one in their understanding
of the eschatological moment (Luke 7:19). John was living proof of the fact
that God fulfills our hopes in ways that surprise and even confound us. We who
follow Jesus today are equally out of phase with him. Jesus confounds us
moderns as well.

Jesus did not come in order that he might
teach us to understand evil in order that evil be excused. There can be no free
forgiveness of sin. Jesus forgives sins, but at a terrible cost. The price is
the cross. Nevertheless, Jesus did not come as a fierce, moralistic ascetic
either. Eating and drinking are not the problem (Luke 7:34). The problem
relates to the demons. Jesus came not to castigate the victims of sin but to
cast out demons which bind us in sin -- the demons of despair, of
self-righteousness, of vengeance. Jesus did not come preaching repentance;
rather he came to overcome the darkness. Unless this victory is won, our
repentance is impossible, for we are not free. In an unexpected way, he was the
warrior Messiah of first century Israel’s hope, for he vanquished the elemental
spirits of the universe; he conquered sin and death. By setting us free, he
cast our repentance in a wholly new light.